Through the Smoke

Throwing off the blankets, Rachel climbed to her feet. She had to let the villagers know the rumor was false, had to tell Mr. Cutberth and the miners she hadn’t turned on them. They would hardly approve of her selling herself to anyone—no God-fearing citizen would—but the earl! They’d brand her a traitor and run her out of town. What could she do for poor Geordie then? It was the dead of winter, for heaven’s sake!

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Tate demanded.

“To talk to Mrs. Chauncery and Mrs. Miller and the others.”

“Don’t bother with them. Go to the blacksmith’s apprentice. ’E offered for ye once. Maybe there’s still a soft spot in ’is ’eart. If ye can convince ’im that yer still untouched, per’aps ’e’ll stand by ye an’ ’elp convince the others.”

Untouched. She was no longer untouched and couldn’t sell the poor blacksmith’s apprentice on such a lie. She wouldn’t even try. It wasn’t fair.

“I will speak to who I can,” Rachel said. Certainly the villagers would believe her. She’d grown up with them. She’d helped in the struggle to unionize. She and her mother had taught some of the adults to read, and many of their children too. If she said she wasn’t the earl’s mistress, they had to believe her, didn’t they?

Rachel threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin as she made her way down the main street of Creswell. She had visited the laundress, the tailor, the shoemaker and the milliner, but the story had been the same with all of them. They’d stared through her as if she hadn’t been standing in front of them, had refused to acknowledge her, no matter how many ways she pled her innocence. Which was difficult to do in the first place. Somewhere in her heart, she accepted partial responsibility for what had transpired at Blackmoor Hall.

But it had been an accident, she told herself. At least, it had stemmed from one. It wasn’t something she’d entered into knowingly. And she hadn’t accepted the earl’s money when it was over.

She wasn’t about to give up. Certainly someone would remember all her mother had done for the community and how much she herself had tried to give. Someone had to believe her.

The chimney sweep who traveled through the more sparsely populated counties passed her on the street, wearing his usual sooty hat. In stark contrast to how she’d been treated so far, he greeted her, but he couldn’t do anything to reverse the tide of public opinion. He had to move on in a few days or weeks. Creswell didn’t have enough chimneys to keep him busy for long.

At least his smile was heartening. Perhaps there were others like him who hadn’t heard or didn’t care.

Rachel’s hopes in that regard fell a little more each time she encountered someone new. Almost everyone who had any influence in town cast her a disparaging look and stepped wide to avoid direct contact, as if she might contaminate them. She visited the baker who had given Geordie the bread that morning, but he treated her no more charitably than the others. Evidently word was spreading fast and emotions were running high. Even the baker’s errand boy narrowed his eyes and spat at the ground as she passed.

By the time she decided to go directly to the source of the problem—Roxy at Elspeth’s, and then, possibly, probably, Wythe Stanhope himself—hot tears burned behind her eyes.

Elspeth’s was a ramshackle building on the back side of town, two wattle-and-daub houses and a converted shed, joined together. The street leading to its sagging porch was usually muddy, but today the ground was too frozen for mud. The ice and snow crunched beneath Rachel’s boots as she cleared the small gate at the entrance to what had once been a garden but was now barren earth. The walks hadn’t been cleared. They rarely were.

The smell of fried food and dirty linen assaulted Rachel’s senses as she waited in the front foyer for the girl who’d answered the door to summon Roxy, but at least the room was warm. She felt like she’d been freezing for months. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever be warm again.

“Madame Soward said not ter disturb Roxy. She’s got ter work in a few ’ours,” the girl announced, returning. “But Madame will see ye. Back ’ere.”

Rachel followed her through the maze-like interior of the house. It had been partitioned off in several places to create more private rooms, but the thin walls did little to cloak the sounds of what went on inside. It was just after noon, and already Rachel could hear a rocking bed.

Quelling a shudder, she focused on the back of the slender girl she followed. Rachel had visited Elspeth’s before, but always first thing in the morning. Most of the women were asleep then, the last of their customers just claiming their horses and heading home—like Wythe had been the morning she’d passed him.

Evidently business picked up much earlier than Rachel would have guessed.

“Rachel, how are you?” Elspeth glanced up from where she sat on a narrow settee as the girl led Rachel into a small parlor. She was wearing a red dress with a tight-fitting bodice that failed to give her a waist but succeeded in pushing her huge bosom up and almost over the top of a deep décolleté. She was heavily powdered and rouged, but nothing could camouflage the fact that she was getting older, well past her prime.

The room, gaudily decorated with purple velvet drapes, flocked wallpaper and purple upholstery, was far different from the small, brown study at the back of the house where they’d met before. A breakfast tray resided on the marble-topped table in front of Elspeth.

“I’ve been better,” she admitted. “Have you heard?”

Elspeth considered her thoughtfully. “Please, come sit next to me and relax. You’ve made some powerful people angry.”

“I am not sure I know why.” Rachel perched on the edge of the seat closest to Elspeth and hoped sight of the food wouldn’t make her stomach grumble. She’d dashed off with nothing more than the crust of bread Geordie had given her for breakfast.

“Is that so?” Elspeth went and closed the door. When she turned she eyed Rachel from head to foot. “First, tell me why the miners would have reason to distrust you.”

“I have no idea,” Rachel said. “I have always done my best to help them. My father and brother were miners.”

“But the earl believes your father had something to do with the fire, does he not?”

“That’s no secret. The past few months, his solicitor, Mr. Lewis, and his butler, Mr. Linley, have been questioning everyone in town about my father.”